


Storm Brewing

by eichart



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythical Creatures, Kinda, Still Hockey Players, willy is a mermaid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 09:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12885276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eichart/pseuds/eichart
Summary: Willy knows there’s Mer in his blood, but without a single doubt there’s hockey there too.





	Storm Brewing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vidriana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vidriana/gifts).



> Thanks to theLadyScribe for setting up another amazing fic exchange, and thanks to jackson1523 for the beta work! Hope you guys enjoy!!

When people ask Willy what his first memory is, he knows what they expect him to say: some hockey anecdote pressed into shimmering perfection. Something about floor hockey in a Calgary basement, maybe something about shinny on crystal lakes in Sweden, maybe something about watching his Dad from behind Plexiglas and dreaming about how it was going to be him some day.

But that’s not quite it. 

And he remembers these things too, of course, but the first thing he remembers is water–water and silver bubbles and the way light dances on golden scales. 

Why wouldn’t he?

After all, he was born into it.

… 

It’s a feeling he gets in the middle of practice, a metallic taste of glacial ice in his mouth accompanied by goosebumps on his arms despite the fact he’s sweating his ass off. He can almost see it, white clouds rolling across the lake to engulf the city. 

“There’s a storm brewing,” Willy says darkly, but no one takes him seriously.

“Huh?” says Auston. 

“Yeah,” Mitch chimes in at the same time, squirting water into his mouth. Some dribbles down his chin and Willy rolls his eyes. “What’re you talking about?” Mitch continues and Willy frowns as Mitch mops at his chin with a jersey sleeve. “Weather’s clear 'til like. Next week.” 

Which, first of all, Mitch is from Toronto, so he really should know better than to say that, and second of all, Willy just _knows_. There’s nothing scientific about it except maybe on the biology side of things. Mer-blood has gotten a little twisted and diluted through the generations, but the Nylanders still have it pretty strong. Willy thinks Alex got more than he did considering the mild water powers that somehow skipped right to the younger, but that discussion has been tabled for a ‘future date.’ 

Point is, he’s got enough that he gets _impressions_ of what’s to come –not images really, just echoes of negative feelings or a strong hunch that something bad is going to happen. And every single one comes with his Tell: the frigid taste of ice on his tongue. He can’t control it, but Auston snows him when he pulls up to the bench for a drink and Willy gets the sinking feeling that more is lurking on the horizon –whiteouts and drifts that the city can’t quite keep up with. 

“There’s a storm coming,” Willy repeats, but no one is listening to him at this point. So he rolls his eyes and swipes Auston’s water bottle for a drink instead. 

They probably wish they listened to him when the unexpected blizzard blows in to catch everyone unaware and grind the bustle of Toronto to a shuttering standstill. 

No one can say he didn’t try.

…

Willy knows the old stories, knows about how hundreds of years ago they weren’t so much secrets as they were myths and legends misinterpreted for sirens who sang sailors to their deaths. Sirens are–certainly _something._ He dated one once–it hadn’t ended well. 

The Mer were– _are_ –different, more benevolent, more helpful for things like warnings and sitting pretty on rocks.

He knows that they’re not quite like that anymore, that times change and things are a little different now. There are things like radar and meteorologists to warn people of oncoming storms. But there is one truth that remains: weather cannot always be predicted. It doesn’t want to be. It’s as static as ocean currents and as predictable as a sudden riptide. 

Sometimes it takes a bit of myth to see it coming. 

… 

When the storm blows into Toronto, Alex is up for the weekend, taking advantage of the lengthy Amerks break to hang with his best bro or whatever. Willy doesn’t really care why; he always likes Alex’s visits –misses in some ways when he was staying in Sauga and they used to sneak out to swim at night. It kinda sucks that when Alex does manage to come up, so is the storm, because that means they can’t exactly make it to the aquarium after hours to swim in one of their saltwater tanks. 

So Willy’s on the couch with the heat turned as low as it will go and windows half-open to let chilly air roll in damp and frigid. Alex’s somewhere in the apartment, soaking his fins or some shit. 

Willy’s contemplating the risks of a prank while housebound when a knock at the door pulls him from his thoughts–honestly, it’s probably for the best. Still, he ignores it in favor of the comfort of the couch until the knocking reaches past persistent, at which point he just yells, “It’s open” in the general direction of the door.

He’s not exactly surprised when the door swings inward to let in Mitch and Auston and a gust of snow. The wind feels almost blissful against his bare arms and he’s tempted to tell them to leave it open. He doesn’t though, because that would probably ruin the hardwood floor and the landlord already hates him for keeping the heat dangerously low for the water pipes.

“What the fuck, it’s colder in here than it is outside,” says Auston, bundled up in a down jacket and Mitch tumbling in after in his wake in what looks to be two sweatshirts.

Alex chooses then to emerge from the bathroom, barefoot and hair dripping with cold water to soak the collar of his shit. “Where’s the—” He trails off at the sight of Auston and Mitch swaddled in their winter clothing.

“Oh hey, Alex.” Says Auston, before his voice takes a turn for the skeptical as he takes in the younger Nylander, still wet from a bath and not showing any sign of shivering. “Aren’t _you_ cold?”

Alex looks at Willy who looks at Auston. “Uh—” says Willy eloquently. Hey, no one ever said they were sirens, and it’s not like he can suddenly go spouting the truth. The _truth_ that they like it cold because it reminds him of Stockholm, of swimming in the frigid ocean, of home.

The silence stretches for a beat too long, broken by what sounds like a sigh on Alex’s end. “We just finished working out,” says Alex finally, “Got, y’know, _super_ hot.” Willy resists the urge to roll his eyes because he’s not sure that lie helps any. Alex sucks at lying.

“Yeah,” Willy says anyway because it’s not like he has a better one either. “Think you can shut the windows now, Alex.” When in doubt, shove the blame onto Alex.

“You’re fucking weird,” says Mitch, shoving his hands into his coat pockets.

“What does that make you then?” snorts Auston, and Willy can’t help but laugh.

…

Willy remembers snippets of Calgary, of Chicago, of Boston, of the many places they bounced across during the final years of his father’s contracts.

Living in Toronto in many ways, is a lot like those years had been. Living in Calgary wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t great either. Even with the dilutions in their blood, their kind is meant to be born at sea, and Willy and his brother had to do with saltwater tanks and frigid air.

He still craves summers and the way they all tumble home to Stockholm and how the salt in cold fjords have a way of invigorating them all. And yet—

Living in Toronto isn’t bad either. There’s something here, something that Willy finds himself sinking into like cold ocean waters: just as potent, just as blissful.

…

The city deals with the snow the best way it knows how–no stranger to lake effect and snow.

“Let’s go swimming.” Willy says one day not long after that because he’s starting to feel dry and itchy and he wants to stretch out and _swim_ even if it’s in some tiny public pool. He’s getting pretty fucking tired of his bathtub.

“It’s freezing outside," complains Mitch.

“You want –to go swimming,” repeats Auston slowly.

Willy shrugs, shuffles his socked feet across Auston’s coffee table, goes for nonchalant. “Yeah, why not? I’m bored, it’s fun, and good cross-training anyway or whatever.”

The cross-training bit seems to convince Auston, and because Mitch is a bro and there’s no one to bother if he’s alone in the apartment, he grudgingly tags along. Willy considers it an all-around win.

Toronto’s pools aren’t like the ocean. They’re filled with chemicals like chlorine that make the scales hidden skin deep itch, but maybe it’s a good thing the pool doesn’t feel like the ocean–he’s not so tempted to turn then. Still, there’s something freeing about swimming even if he has to stick to this legged form and can’t swim nearly as fast as he want to. Water is water and Willy will take this over nothing.

He dives into the deep end, feels the water run past his skin and can’t help but smile. Auston actually tries to fucking swim laps for five minutes before he gives up and lingers by one of the walls where Mitch is floundering.

Willy lays on the bottom of the pool, blue eyes wide open as he stares upward at the underside of the rippling surface. He takes a moment to breathe, to let water settle heavy in his lungs, before he pushes up toward the surface again, quiet.

Auston shrieks when Willy grabs at his legs and pulls him under too. Mitch’s laughter is faint before it’s swallowed completely by the water. Willy lets go of Auston’s legs, lets them both suspend in the middle of the pool for a moment before he sinks to settle on the bottom. Auston lingers across from him, a smiling tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Willy floats a little closer until their knees are just bumping, hair floating halo-like around his head. Things look different underwater, more teal, more peaceful; it has a way of suspending time. He meets Auston’s eyes carefully trained on him and thinks about how vulnerable he looks–how some part of him wants to stay here forever.

He’s thinking that Auston looks beautiful, like the water has washed away the stresses of being the savior of a dying Original Six Franchise. And there’s this thing prickling at him, heightened with the water burning in his lungs. Auston considers him, and Willy considers him and there’s this temptation to lean in—

Auston jerks away and shoots toward the surface in a stream of silver bubbles. Willy settles back to the bottom of the pool, not bound by things like drowning, pressing the feeling into memory.

…

He and Alex were taught to swim before they even knew anything else. It’s normal for people like them to take to water so naturally–it’s in pre-written in their genetics, it’s just how things are. Still, they found their way to hockey like their father before them.

Some people found them odd that way.

People back at home, people who knew, fellow Mers–they ask sometimes why they’re a hockey family and not something a bit more _aquatic:_ swimming, diving, water polo. It just doesn’t make sense to them.

But it’s more complicated than that. There’s the thought of constantly being surrounded by water, the constant worry that he might not be able to control this, the persistent fear he could be found—

Willy has enough stress in his life without that added layer to it.

There’s this too: the way he loves the cold of ice rinks and likes the motion of skating. Somehow, it feels the same way it does when he has his fins and dives deep under water.

There’s Mer in his blood, but without a single doubt there’s hockey there too.

…

Mitch is behind the wheel of Matt Martin’s borrowed car, Auston rapping along to some song in the passenger seat, when Willy gets the feeling–nausea roiling in his stomach, a dizzying lightheadedness that makes his vision go spotted–it has nothing to do with being in the backseat with Mitch’s horrid driving capabilities. The donuts he ate suddenly don’t seem like such a good idea.

There's the taste of ice in his mouth–sharp and so cold his tongue feels numb.

The light is green up ahead.

“Stop.” Willy says suddenly. “Stop the car.”

“What?”

“I’m serious. _Stop_.” His voice cracks a little on the high note in panic. He doesn’t care.

“Willy, what the fuck?” Mitch looks back at him. Beside him Auston falls silent mid-verse and turns too.

“You okay?” says Auston, brow furrowing. “You don’t look so good.”

And no, Willy does _not_ feel good --and he knows from the familiar taste of glacial ice on his tongue this isn’t the flu kind of not-feel-good. It’s worse. It’s _bad_.

“ _Mitchell_ ,” Willy snaps finally, “stop the _fucking_ car or I’m puking all over Matty’s new upholstery job.”

That finally seems to spur Mitch into motion and he slams on the brakes only centimeters before the white intersection markings on the pavement. Willy frantically reaches for the door handle. He tumbles out into the sidewalk, snow seeping through the fabric of his jeans and sidewalk salt biting into his palms as he reminds himself to breath.

“Will, are--” Auston’s there a moment later, a comforting hand on his shoulder, and he goes to say more but trails off as a truck barrels through the red light, brakes screeching and car horns blaring in response. “Holy shit,” breathes Auston. Willy remains slumped in dirty sidewalk snow, relieved. “How–”  begins Auston.

“What the _fuck_ .” A yell from the car interrupts them, Mitch clambering over the center council to stick his head out the still open passenger side door. “Dang, Willy, if your stomach wasn’t so sensitive we’d be _dead_ right now.

Willy spits on the ground into dirtied snow and rolls his eyes. No need to say that he singlehandedly saved them from being pancakes on some random Toronto street. He stands, wipes his dirty hands on his jeans. The lightheadedness and nausea have passed.

“You okay?” asks Auston. He’s got one hand on Willy’s arm when he stands and when Willy looks over there’s a concerned glint in Auston’s eyes.

“Yeah–I’m good.” he says.

…

Willy remembers the first time he Felt.

He’d been meant to be watching Alex, only two years younger yet seemingly infinitely stupider. Willy had been ten at the time and it’d only meant to be a few quick hours. Willy had retreated to his bedroom to play on his DS and Alex had said he was going to take a bath.

He’d been bullying Mario through the last few jumps of the level when the taste of ice filled his mouth–cold, metallic, bitingly frigid. He hadn’t known what that’d meant back then–had felt the way his stomach turned and thought it’d been just one too many sneaked chocolates.

The panic that bubbled up in his chest as the taste of ice in his mouth intensified became too much to ignore eventually. It was some other instinct that guided him where he needed to be. He supposes it was mostly luck that he got to Alex before too much damage had been done. The tears in Alex’s fins had taken over a month to heal and Willy had never forgiven himself.

It’d been the first time he’d tasted his Tell and the last time he ever ignored it.

…

Willy’s trying to look at his reflection in the Plexiglas of the rink when Auston bumps into him none too gently.

“You're so fucking narcissistic,” says Auston, but he has this ridiculously fond look on his face and Willy can't miss the way it doesn't sound so biting.

“Guess it’s in my blood,” Willy counters with the smirk, one hand running through golden hair. And it's not a lie really–all myths have a grain of truth in them somewhere. “Just can’t help looking this good.”

“You’re hopeless.” Auston squirts him with his water bottle and Willy’s smile widens.

“ _You’re_ hopeless–hopeless for me and you know it," he teases without really thinking.

Auston flushes slightly and–

 

 _Oh_ , that’s interesting.

…

Management knows about his…condition. Well not exactly what it is, but they know about his needs, and once a week Willy gets the tubs all to himself and fills the largest one with frigid water and sea salt. It's not quite the same and expensive as fuck, but it works well enough.

(He saves the trips to the aquarium for emergencies and special occasions: favors and trust aren’t cheap either.)

He gets itchy and moody when he goes too long in human form–he's starting to lose practice too: go too long and it's easy to get stuck with fins for longer than you want.

It’s freeing to strip down and sink down into the water, let his scales come to the surface in rows of shimmering gold and stretch blue dusted fins out.

He’s just staring to really relax when his phone buzzes in his sweatshirt left on the ground.

Willy sighs his displeasure, elects to ignore it until it buzzes again. Only then does he paw at the cloth to wrestle the device free and squints at the screen.

 _Where r u._ Says Auston. _I need to talk to u. In person._

Fucking Auston Matthews. Willy types back, _im in the bath can’t this wait_

_No_

_Dude im like. Naked._

Willy stares at Auston’s little typing dots that disappear and reappear far too many times for the text that finally comes through.

_Since when has that ever bothered you._

Willy drops his phone into the water in shock. “ _Shit_.”

…

Willy’s never been good at following the rules, but there are two that have been engrained into his mind from the moment he could understand them.

  1. Don’t go too long between transformations
  2. Don’t let anyone see you as a Mer



These are the only rules he’s ever been good at following.

He has a third rule too, pressed into his mind with the memory of Alex’s torn fins: Never ignore the Tell of danger.

...

The water feels like it's getting steadily hotter around him, battling with the cold taste of frost in his mouth. Willy squirms in the tub, golden fins splashing copious amounts of water on the floor.

_Danger._

He stares at his scales glittering beneath the water, tries to will them to sink back skin deep–make him human. When it doesn’t work panic rises in his throat. He can hear footsteps echoing down the hallway and oh _god_ , this is not the way he wanted anyone to find out.

It'd be fucking stupid to reveal himself like this over something as stupid as an incapability to transform back. He shouldn't have gone so long between transformations.

He hears the door and “ _Wait!_ ” leaves his mouth much more frantically than he wanted.

“Will--” Auston pauses, looks at Willy trying to calm his heartbeat back down with large calming breathes. “Are you okay?”

There are still small flecks of scales on his thighs, Willy can feel them and hopes that Auston isn't looking and if he is, they can be written off as weird reflections of light in the water surface.

“Yeah–” says Willy finally, the water in the tub cooling back down to the temperature he likes even as the taste of ice lingers. That was far too close for comfort.  “Yeah, I’m good.” Auston’s still frowning at him like he doesn’t believe what Willy has to say which certainly won’t do. “So did you actually want something or you just trying to get a look at this?” He waggles his eyebrows and Auston huffs out a laugh, cheeks pink.

Willy can’t help but smile back.

...

Willy knew that playing hockey would bring him places that didn’t make him comfortable, but that was a risk he was willing to take for the sport he loved so much. God, he was even risking going south to Tampa or god forbid Arizona, where it was hot and infinitely land bound.

The ocean will always belong to him, will always be his home just as he knows the Stockholm house still stands strong like family blood.

But the rink is a close second.

And Willy wraps himself in the cold air of Toronto, in the exhilaration of scoring a goal and jumping into Auston’s too warm arms.

There’s _this:_ staring at Auston across a glass of beer dripping with condensation and Mitch chirping them both with relish. Brownie smirks at them and Mo and Gards keep a watchful eye from across the room.  It’s not the ocean and it’s not cold and beneath his jeans there’s skin smothering his scales but there’s _this_ and Willy realizes that this too is a second: a second family.

Sometimes he feels a bit lost on all this land, so far from frigid ocean waters–sometimes it feels like he’s being tugged out by the riptide again to be tossed in turbulent seas.

But Willy looks and there’s Auston and there’s this feeling he has when he looks. The warmth in his stomach isn’t new–Willy’s pretty in touch with his emotions, knows what this rare warmth means and knows how easy it would be to chase it.

He can understand this: this human sentiment so-called love.

But there's this too: the faintest taste of glacial ice against his tongue when Auston’s close, when Willy looks to find Auston already looking, he doesn’t understand that.

Maybe he doesn’t want to.

**Author's Note:**

> Great thanks to Vidriana for planting the idea of Willy being a mythical creature of sorts (at times, he certainly does act like one). I never really stopped to think from that angle, but I have been feeling some mermaid muse lately. So I took to the internet, found the following information, and just ran with it:
> 
> "Mermaids in most mythology have a bad reputation of luring men to their watery demise. In Scandinavian folklore, they are good-natured beings who sit on rocks and comb their beautiful gold hair. Quite unlike their wicked sister, Lorelei, who does lure men to their death, mermaids warn seafaring men of storms and other dangers. They can foretell the future, and because of this, there is often an air of melancholy around them."
> 
> That information just really resonated with me and Willy and here we are. This piece ended up being more of a pre-fic than I originally planned. Once I dove into this universe it kept expanding and expanding and within the time limits, I realized I couldn't reach the characterization, world, or relationship depth I would want to reach in order to put out a piece I was truly proud of. As a result, this fic was born.
> 
> That being said, I do hope to revisit this universe and think a more plot-driven sequel will be in the works at some point in the future.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and if you liked, please drop a comment! If you have any questions or want to talk more about the Mermaid AU, drop by my [tumblr](http://www.thenylanderbros.tumblr.com)!!


End file.
